The Beetle & the Beldam
by The Art of Suicide
Summary: "The only feature of hers that the doll seemed to lack were her eyes. Instead of honeyed irises, two shiny black buttons gazed up at her, devoid of emotion. They appeared to see right through her, staring at everything and nothing at all." WIP. BJ/Coraline crossover.
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer: _I own nothing. I am but a penniless amateur aiming to please the hungry masses, and hopefully feed my own demons.

* * *

**THE BEETLE & THE BELDAM**

* * *

It began with a whisper echoing across the recesses of her mind, calling out with an aching familiarity that was just beyond her recognition.

_"Lydia..." _

The voice was soft, sweet, and painfully nostalgic. It reminded her of days spent in the park, hidden away from the sun; a time when she would wear an oversized black sunhat, much too large for the frame of such a small child. The gothic summer accessory swamped her. If one were to look at her all they would see was the twinkling gleam of dark eyes the color of spiced honey. A tuft of midnight hair encompassed what remained of the child's pale, delicate features from beneath the hat's wide brim. A parasol decorated with a pattern of intricate swirling tendrils served to both hide her from the sun's cruel rays and cloak her diminutive form in shadows. The twining design seemed almost alive as it moved passed the creased petals of the sunshade. It crept along the wooden stem like an ever-reaching growth of ivy until meeting the handle.

The child, small and fragile as she was, had to hold the shade in both of her tiny hands just to keep it from crashing to the ground. A laugh so musical it paralleled the notes of wind chimes tinkling in the breeze danced across her ears.

_"Lydia, darling. Here, let Mama hold it." _

The woman spoke again in her melodic way. The sound of it managed to soothe her childish distress. Her voice, though lyrical almost to the point of ethereality in its intonation, had a husky quality about it that spoke of many years spent singing. The parasol shifted slightly, causing glaring sunlight to blind her for a brief moment as it was taken from her grasp and planted firmly into the lush greenery. It leaned away at an angle, leaving just enough purchase to allow the little girl to continue basking in the shade.

"_Oh, pretty baby,"_

she cooed, her hush a river of honey in the child's ears,

"_that's much too big for you, isn't it? Come. Give it to me."_

There was a slight pressure at the top of her head as her mother stole the hat away, placing it regally upon her own cascade of raven hair as a queen might a crown. Long nails the color of fresh blood plucked at the fine black lace of the veil, hiding her eyes from view. What color were they supposed to be? Lydia couldn't remember. It had been far too many years since last she had seen them. When she attempted to open her mouth to ask her mother to move the veil, to reveal her eyes once more so that she could have something concrete to cling to, she found that her lips failed her. It was as though they were lined with cotton and sewn shut.

"_None of that, my love," _

she tutted, pinching the apple of one pink, baby soft cheek with her ruby claws.

"_Here, let Mama sing you a song."_

The sun was gone from the sky, leaving only tumultuous winds and dark clouds. As though she was a stone and the ground was a pond, the previously thriving grass began to brown and decay around her, rippling out as far as the eye could see. There was movement beneath her mother's skirt, the shadowy fabric billowing and creasing to make room for something. It wasn't until the sugary voice began to croon that Lydia realized there were fat tears streaming down her face.

"_The itsy bitsy spider climbed up the water spout…"_

Thunder cracked from above, resonating down to the ground and providing an ominous harmony to the lullaby. The thin lace veil stayed firmly in place, cloaking half her mother's face in unforgiving shadows even as violent winds tore at the delicate material of her dark gown. No matter. Lydia was no longer interested in stealing a peek. There was something horribly, horribly wrong with her; the line of her nose was too perfect, the shine of her teeth too white, the call of her song too beautiful.

"_Down came the rain and washed the spider out…"_

Prophetically, the simple rhyme was able to call upon the whims of nature and bring down a torrent of storms so furious it was as though Gaia herself wept over them. Her mother's gown didn't stand a chance against her mighty tears. Frenzied winds shred strips of silk from the long sleeves and train. The inky bits of fabric slithered like a knot of serpents through the air, coming to find homes around the child's tiny, breakable wrists and ankles. They pulled, jerking her flat on the ground, ready to be drawn and quartered like a condemned criminal. However, instead of damp soil and wet grass, she met silk; fine, glossy, and warm. Something round- both sharp and blunt at the same time- kept her eyes open and oh how she longed to close them.

"_Out came the sun and dried up all the rain…"_

Flashes of wine colored silk wrapped along her head and body; cocooning, blinding her. The lack of sight was a mercy, despite the crushing claustrophobia that came with it. It saved her from bearing witness to the complete transformation, the ravenous beast her mother was becoming. Alabaster flesh melted and cracked, barely keeping itself together upon elongated, deformed bones. The muscles and joints at her hip ripped open; splitting, dividing and reforming until eight horrific spider-like legs bent beneath her, supporting her malnourished body. Her mother's once lovely features were hollowing out, contorting with a savage hunger as she closed the distance between herself and her child. The top half of her face was still just out of sight beneath the veil. Sharp teeth gleamed beneath the curl of thin red lips, closing in on Lydia's cheek for… a kiss? A bite? Unsure, the girl struggled within her bonds, only to sink deeper still into the warm sea of wine-colored silk.

"_And the itsy bitsy spider climbed up the spout again…"_

* * *

Lydia awoke just as her vintage Dracula alarm clock came to life at her side— covered in a slick sheen of sweat and wrestling valiantly with the three-hundred dollar sheets that Delia insisted on. A small, spring bound vampire donning cloak and fangs sprung out of its coffin while a miniscule screen framed by bats showed the time. "It is seven a.m. Bwahaha," Vlad repeated robotically in a thick, mock Transylvanian accent before descending into a malevolently mischievous cackle. The way the audio tended to change, adding a layer of distortion to the Count's iconic laugh, showed both its age and quality. If not turned off in a timely fashion, the irksome sound would eventually dissolve into an unbearable shriek. Unable to stand it, she was quick to slap Drac back into his cheap plastic coffin, banishing him to the crypt for yet another morning.

It was still dusky out. The sun was just beginning to creep over the edge of the horizon to lend its light to the world. Muted blue beams filtered through the edge of her window despite her thick, dark curtains efforts to suppress them. Abruptly and without warning, visions of her mother's gaunt, misshapen form assaulted her mind's eye. A swell instantaneous of nausea rose in her gut. A wavering palm came to press against her chest, hoping to bring calm to her rising heartbeat.

_What the fuck was that about? _Lydia's dreams were often whimsically dark, nonsensical and out of step with reality. However, whenever the ghost of her mother's memory deigned to enter them, they were always, _always_ good. Why would her subconscious see fit to treat her to such a horrific vision? What did it mean?

Maybe… Maybe _he_ had something to do with it.

The possibility was dismissed just as quickly as it was considered. What interest would he have in feeding her nightmares about her dead mother? There was nothing to be gained from it, other than disturbing her. Not that Lydia would put him above such petty games. Still, this was too subtle for him. If he wanted to disrupt the monotony of her mundane life, this is not how he would do it. Betelgeuse would have bigger, badder tricks up his sleeve, flashier illusions than a mere bad dream. Not only that, but he would most certainly leave his signature. If he was fucking with her, he would want there to be no doubt in her mind that _he_ was fucking with her. Besides, the poltergeist had not darkened the halls of the Deetz residence in nearly two years. He obviously had better things to do than manipulate his wife's unconscious hallucinations.

_Wife_.

The word still felt strange, even as she fiddled with the band permanently wrapped around her ring finger. It would not be removed, no matter how hard she tried. The ostentatious piece of jewelry was beautiful in its own right, she supposed, though highly unorthodox. Its stone was large and square, thicker than the finger it adorned, and the deepest, darkest shade of red— so dark even that it could be mistaken for obsidian at first glance. Sharp talons crept up from the brilliant silver band to clutch at each of the four corners possessively- a perpetual tug of war. It reminded her of the ravens that frequented the Winter River cemetery, scheming and plotting to steal away any shiny bits left behind by funeral parties. Lydia always made sure to only offer them the most polished of her pocket change in exchange for their cooperation in posing for photos. Theirs was a mutually symbiotic relationship.

Mr. and Mrs. Deetz either didn't notice or chose to ignore that their daughter still wore her wedding ring, and Lydia never went out of her way to bring it to their attention. It wasn't as though they could do anything about it. The Maitlands at the very least noticed. Their apprehension over the matter was tangible, but like her parents, they were helpless. There was nothing they could do but whisper their concerns to each other late at night when they were under the mistaken impression that Lydia was asleep or out of earshot.

"_What if he comes back?" _Barbara would ask, nervously hushed.

"_I don't know." _Adam would reply, drained and out of his league.

"_What do we do, Adam?" _

"_I don't know." _

That particular phrase was overheard a discouraging number of times. The ghostly couple was especially useless now that they were gone from the house, having moved on to the Neitherworld. _"A reward,"_ their caseworker said, _"for dealing with that slimy shit on your own without bothering me. Not a lot of newbies could have handled a poltergeist of his magnitude the way you did. Kudos."_

Lydia only knew about this exchange because of second-hand briefing. She was at school when the decrepit spirit showed up to offer her deceased guardians the generous pardon from their probationary haunting period. It was a limited time offer. They were gone before she even had the chance to say goodbye. The swiftness with which they accepted Juno's proposal stung, but Lydia understood. She didn't want to be stuck in that house any more than they did.

It was time to get up. Too much of her morning had already been wasted dwelling on the past and she would rather not give Miss Shannon an excuse to berate her in front of the entire class for trudging in late. Claire would have a field day with that. Sluggishly, she tore from the lulling comfort of her mattress to begin preparing for the day. However, the sight of a new addition to her vanity gave her pause.

_What the…?_

"You're _me_."

The shocked admission, thick with sleep and surprise, croaked from her throat unbidden. Lydia was not prone to talking to herself, but the sight of the doll staring back at her— propped comfortably against her mirror's surface, as though it had always been there, as though it _belonged_ there— caught her so completely off guard that she couldn't help the involuntary slip. The miniature Lydia had long black hair made of yarn that hung to the small of the doll's back— just like hers did. The fabric that made up its skin was just several shades shy of true porcelain— just like hers was. It wore a long-sleeved black sundress that mimicked the ones she often wore, fishnet stockings like the kind she sometimes paired with her shorter dresses, and a set of combat boots that were identical to her favorite pair. It even wore her ring.

"Where did you come from?" This inquiry was just as automatic, just as unthinking as her sudden desire to take the doll into her hands and inspect it meticulously, down to the last thread. Overcome with curiosity, she did not ignore the urge.

Whoever the seamstress was, they had been painstakingly fastidious in their attention to detail. The fringe of yarn that fell just above the doll's sewn in brow was exactly the correct length. Alabaster fabric pulled and pinched together above its pale pink rosebud mouth, forming a nose that an experienced plastic surgeon would not have been able to replicate so masterfully. When Lydia brushed back its hair she saw that three miniature black gems no larger than pebbles adorned each the doll's ears. A listless hand came up to tug at her own lobe, needing to count though she knew she would find it similarly pierced thrice.

The only feature of hers that the doll seemed to lack were her eyes. Instead of honeyed irises, two shiny black buttons gazed up at her, devoid of emotion. They appeared to see right through her, staring at everything and nothing at all. If her mini-me was turned just the right way, it almost seemed as though the careful line of stitches that made up its stoic mouth were forming a smile.

Impatiently, Lydia proceeded to throw on her uniform, braided her hair into a haphazard updo, and rush through brushing her teeth, eager to interrogate her father and Delia and get to the bottom of this.

"Dad! Delia!" She exclaimed, grinning brightly and flushed from excitement as she blitzed into the kitchenette, interrupting the discussion they were having about her father's most recent venture in real estate. Mini Lydia was clutched tightly to her chest, button eyes facing outward. "Thank you so much! I love her! She's perfect! How did you even-"

Delia cut off her impassioned ramblings, an appalled wince in her blue eyes as she examined the doll. "What is _that?!"_

Lydia's expression fell. "You mean… you didn't…?"

"It's hideous!" The redhead started up again, a disgusted curve to her upper lip. "And so— so _creepy!_ Why on earth would you make something like that? Who is it supposed to be? Typhoid Mary?!"

Hurt by her stepmother's unthinkingly cruel observations, she lashed out. "Well," she sniffed, calm and cool, carefully tucking her doll into her school bag and turning her back on them, unwilling to let them see how deeply she was affected by the woman's words. "You are the expert when it comes to _hideous."_

The tears stinging at the back of her eyes were furiously blinked back as she stormed from the house, tuning out Delia's offended retort and her father's apathetic reassurances. It was freezing out. The sky was an ugly shade of gray. Pride kept Lydia from turning back around to retrieve her coat and scarf from her bedroom closet. It would detract from the impact of her dramatic exit.

Instead, she steeled herself, straddled her bike, and took off down the hill, stubbornly ignoring the biting chill that seeped through her clothes as she pedaled on. The winter wind's hunger for warmth was only exasperated by her mounting speed. Hungrily, it gnawed through the thin fabric of her uniform, raising gooseflesh even as physical exertion inspired a thin sheen of perspiration. She didn't care. The pricks of cold that nipped at her whenever the wind caught taste of her sweat distracted her from the familiar, aching loneliness that was threatening to settle in with the beginning of the day.

Back in her room, unseen by all, a skeletal handprint materialized on the wrong side of her looking glass. Just as swiftly as the apparition appeared, it was gone.

* * *

"_O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,_

_Alone and palely loitering?_

_The sedge has withered from the lake,_

_And no birds sing."_

Miss Shannon had a truly terrible voice for reciting poetry. It was nasally and monotonous, droning on and on endlessly without the mercy of a shift of inflection. This was a horrible shame because the piece she currently read was fascinating— to Lydia anyway. She had already finished it in her head before Miss Shannon could reach the end of the second stanza, giving her ample time to reflect and analyze. It told the tragic tale of a knight; seduced away to a magical world by a beautiful monster. He's lured with pretty tricks and sweet words, only to find that it's all an illusion. The enchantress quickly tires of his mortal charms and abandons him, leaving his soul to wither away in a barren landscape for the rest of eternity— the remains of the romantic mural she painted for him.

Lydia couldn't help but empathize with the knight. The pull of the unknown was no stranger to her. Adam and Barbara always refused to tell her anything about the Neitherworld whenever she asked. It must have been amazing. Why else would they feel the need to shield her from such knowledge? Why else would they have left her—

A pang of hurt, sharp and deep, struck the center of her chest. Immediately, she found a distraction in the black button eyes of her mini-me, sticking out and slightly askew from her bag as it lay limp and open on the ground leaning against her desk. One cloth arm was flung outside the zipper, her head lolled to the side. Little Lydia looked bored too. The metal teeth must have shimmied open in her haste to get to her seat. Even though she had pushed against the wintry winds and pedaled her hardest, she still arrived late; a shivering, flushed, breathless mess.

As predicted, Miss Shannon was eager to make a public example of her as punishment for her lateness. _"The early bird gets the worm, Miss Deetz,"_ she had admonished condescendingly, a bloodthirsty gleam behind her specs, before informing her that she was to write a two-thousand-word essay on the importance of punctuality, due _on time_ tomorrow morning at the start of class. Miss Shannon detested tardiness. Lydia believed she took it as a personal affront to her teaching abilities.

Not that the idea of skipping class wasn't an appealing one if only to grant her ears a reprieve from the grizzly murder of John Keats. She would much have preferred to spend her day slinking about the cemetery, paying respects and making her trades with the ravens, but Winter River was a small town. It was not as easy to get away with playing hooky here as it was in the big city. That, and it was far too cold out for such things. It wouldn't have been had her stubborn pride not demanded she forsake the comfort of warm coverings in the face of Delia's cruel words, but alas, the actress in her would not have let the scene play out any other way.

Miss Shannon was speaking again, a sharpness in her voice that was reserved solely for questioning students.

"Ladies," she began, quite seriously, "what do you suppose _le belle dame_ was hoping to gain from keeping the knight?" There was a touch of dramatism in the way she referred to the succubus that suggested the instructor may have at one time or another dabbled in the arts. For a moment, Lydia fantasized that Miss Shannon used to be a dazzling starlet, capable of captivating thousands with her sonnets— but years of trying and failing to teach ungrateful little brats about the genius of Molière and Sophocles had beaten it out of her. Whether or not this was true, those dreams had long since died, just as surely as the voices of her students were dead.

"Really? No one?" Awkwardly, the silence dragged on without anyone raising an arm to volunteer, letting her simple question go painfully unanswered. The dour sigh that followed, breaching the quiet with its solemnity, belied more of an air of exhaustion than irritation. The wrinkles that drew dark shadows beneath Miss Shannon's spectacles had never before seemed more pronounced.

"Miss Deetz?" There was more hope than spite in her tired voice. The pity Lydia felt for her teacher was so great she couldn't even bring herself to indulge the prideful indignation that was beginning to swell from being singled out yet again. Instead, she cleared her throat and formed an answer.

"Someone to love," she blurted out, forcing her voice not to crack as her volume rose to accommodate the rest of the class. Poorly muffled giggles echoed from the back of the room, making her face burn, and she quickly reformed her answer into something less romantic— and a tad more vicious. "Or maybe she was just hungry."

* * *

"I'm home!" No one answered. A clattering of pots and pans from the kitchen told her that Delia was experimenting with cuisine again. Her stomach lurched, making an unpleasant noise at the prospect. The outline of yellow light that seeped out from the door to her father's study— not to mention the muffled sound of him arguing with someone over the phone— showed that he was busy with work, as usual.

Lydia wasn't sure why she expected anyone to respond to her half-hearted greeting. It was probably just a bad habit that Mr. and Mrs. Maitland instilled in her with their persistent care. Barbara almost always had a warm snack waiting for her upon her return from school. Adam wouldn't let her walk upstairs without subjecting her to one of his terribly corny jokes. They never would have let her leave the house on such a cold day without her jacket and scarf. They most certainly would have noticed the trail of rainwater that followed behind her, dripping from the train of her skirt with each step she took up the stairs.

A relentless storm had burst forth from the sky minutes into her bike ride home, quickly soaking her through. The pelting raindrops were unforgiving in their brutality as they merged with ceaseless blasts of frigid air. Together, they pierced her to the bone as she cycled on— eager to get home to the safety of warmth as quickly as possible. Miraculously, her school books and camera, as well as little Lydia, appeared to be spared from any water damage. How they managed to escape the rain unscathed while she was drenched down to the soles of her shoes was nothing short of illogical. Regardless, she counted her blessings. A new camera was a privilege she wasn't sure her parents could indulge at the moment judging by her father's recent lackluster attitude. A Charles Deetz with money in his wallet was much happier and energetic than a Charles Deetz without.

After changing into something warm and dry— a deep purple nightgown that whispered about her ankles when she walked— Lydia grabbed hold of her mini-me and camera before tip-toeing back downstairs, hoping to make it to the darkroom without arousing Delia's notice.

"Lydia!" The despised redhead chirped cheerfully as Lydia attempted to sneak past, making her shoulders shoot up toward her ears. "Here! Come try my new recipe!" The forced saccharine grin she wore held a secret message. It said; _We have to get along and I am trying. You have to try too. Or else. _

The steaming pot of red goo looked half edible. At least, until the smell hit her. It wasn't bad so much as _strong_. Inhaling deeply out of instinct and blinking away subsequent tears, Lydia tried to suppress her body's automatic reaction and play along. "Mmm," she hummed pleasantly, pretending to smell it again. "What, uhh— what is it?"

Delia's forced smile fell away and she blinked once, brows drawing together with indignation as though the answer should have been obvious. "Codfish curry."

Knowing there was no getting out of this, not with Delia's hawkish gaze trained unflinchingly on both the spoon and her mouth, she allowed some of it to touch her lips. The finesse with which she suppressed the wince and grimace that followed could have earned her a Tony had the right people been in attendance. Lydia adored curry. It was one of her favorite meals. Why did Delia have to take everything she loved and taint it with mediocrity?

"Yum," she trilled unconvincingly in an attempt to appease the woman and twirled back around so that she might make a hasty escape to the haven of her darkroom.

"I'm so glad you like it!" Delia called brightly to her retreating back with a false finality that led Lydia to believe she was in the clear. Then, her stepmother kept talking, halting her descent into the basement. "There should be plenty of leftovers! I'll go ahead and pack some for you to take to school."

There was no winning with that woman. Lydia flipped the switch that controlled the safelights her father installed for her and red beams flooded the basement. They illuminated her workbench, a projector, and the large porcelain sink that Mr. Maitland built into the basement many years ago, back when he was still alive. Embittered by the events of the day, Lydia set her mini-me up on top of a stool where she could keep her company and still be safe from hazardous chemicals and threw herself into her work, eager to channel her stress into the creation of art.

This was one place where she and Delia had something in common. The way she could manipulate light and shadow, forcing the world to look the way she wanted it to, gave her a feeling of control that was lacking in almost every other aspect of her life. Poe, one of her more ornery ravens, was looking particularly pompous this week. The way he ruffled his feathers and cracked his beak in some of these shots made it appear as though he thought he deserved a raise. She supposed she could probably afford to spare him an extra penny or two. It wouldn't be said that Lydia Deetz went around underpaying her models, and Poe was one of her best. If he was unhappy, the feeling of discontent would only spread to the rest of the conspiracy.

"Lydia!" Delia called from above, making her jump. How long had she been working? A quick glance to the clock confirmed that nearly two hours had passed. "Come eat dinner, and clean up when you're done! Your father and I have already finished and are heading to bed. You get a good rest tonight!" A deeper male voice mumbled a similar goodnight, but Lydia was too dumbstruck to reply. _They were already done eating? Did they call her to join the table?_ Or was she just too busy with her photos to notice? It wouldn't be the first time that had happened. Then again, it also wouldn't be the first time they neglected to tell her that dinner was being served and went ahead without her. The Deetzes could not be called traditional by any means.

"Goodnight!" Lydia called out abruptly, uncertain, already knowing it was too late as the parting bounced around unanswered in the cavernous basement. They had undoubtedly shuffled off to bed by now— or more likely, Delia was in the process of dosing up on a cocktail of downers while her father locked himself in his study with a bottle of Jack Daniels. Tucking the strap of her camera over her neck, she made to grab her mini-me and retire from the darkroom for the night, only to hesitate. Little Lydia was no longer sitting on her stool. A cursory investigation showed that she was on the ground feet away, most of her hidden behind the bench. Only one arm and several strands of black yarn were visible beneath the vivid red glare of her safelight. A less observant individual might have had a much more difficult time spotting her than Lydia did.

With a push, the bench was easily rolled out of the way. "Deadly-vu…"

The miniature girl lay directly in front of a trap door that previously had been conveniently obscured behind the workbench. It was wooden and ancient, barely hanging onto its rusted hinges. A thick black padlock hammered into place in the concrete perimeter kept it bolted shut. It probably led to a crawl space! Her father must have hidden it on purpose to keep her from sneaking beneath the house and getting a look at all the interesting creepy crawlies that lived there.

_Well_, Lydia mused, absent-mindedly stroking her bare neck, _he was right to be worried. _

Alas, the skeleton key was tucked several floors away in her vanity. It was too late to go gallivanting under the house, anyway. She was too hungry, there were too many chores to be done, and too much homework to be finished— not even considering Miss Shannon's vindictive essay, she remembered with a scowl. Exploring the crawlspace would just have to wait for another night. Tummy grumbling, she grabbed hold of her mini-me, pushed the bench back into place, shut off the lights, and abandoned the basement to observe the wreckage that was Delia's home-cooking.

It wasn't fair that she should be tasked with cleaning up her stepmother's mess when she had no intention of eating any of it. Nobody asked Delia to cook. She took it upon herself to do so, wanting to feel useful in the wake of joblessness. Fortunately, her stepmother did not see fit to make use of the lavishly remodeled kitchen very often. It was just a testament to Lydia's bad luck that she chose to force her cooking upon them all today. Why were so many positively horrendous things occurring in such a short period of time? It was as though the universe was coming together, unifying to spite _her_ specifically. The stars must have aligned in a particularly crooked fashion on this night.

"Do you want some codfish curry?" The girl offered her mini-me with a heavily feigned allure, waving a slimy spoon enticingly in front of the doll's stitched mouth. Little Lydia looked as though she wanted to barf up her cotton innards. "Yeah. Me neither."

Instead, she prepared a peanut butter sandwich with raspberry jam, a glass of milk, and ate a lonely, sparse dinner. Then, she did what any good child would do and listened to her parents. Whatever ingredients Delia left out were put away to keep from perishing, the table and stove were cleared of dirty dishes, and the dishwasher emptied of clean ones so that it could be reloaded. When the jets inside began to whir, signaling the beginning of the cycle, Lydia, satisfied that her chores had been adequately completed, gathered her doll and camera and retired to her bedroom for the night.

_The Importance of Punctuality_

_Being punctual is important for numerous reasons, all of which can be applied to both school and social life, as well as professional. It is important to one's character because it shows that one exemplifies respect for others…_

Black characters stared back at her from their blindingly white background tauntingly. The essay refused to write itself. As it was, there was only so much that could be said on the virtues of promptness, though Miss Shannon might disagree with her on that. Unbidden, her eyes glossed over, drifting away from her laptop's screen and toward the photos tucked in between the edge of her vanity's mirror and its wooden frame. They were of her favorite dead people; one in sepia tone of an attractive young couple— Adam and Barbara, a clipping of their obituary.

The other was old, grainy, and faded— almost to the point of being black and white. The girl had been told that it didn't do the subject, a raven-haired bombshell, justice. Lydia didn't know how that was possible as the woman in the photo was the most beautiful she had ever seen. A thick rope of ebony hair hung braided over one shoulder, a layer of dark lashes framed wide eyes that gleamed with devilry, and full ruddy lips were curled into a fiendish smirk. A tiny black beauty mark dotted the corner of her left eye, giving her a classic sort of charm. Both the age and poor quality of the photo kept Lydia from being able to discern the color of her eyes.

Though she never dared to say it out loud, Delia hated having pictures of her up around the house. The late Evelyn Deetz's memory posed more of a threat to her than the redhead was comfortable admitting. Except for this one, all other photos of her were stashed away in boxes or in storage, set to gather dust. All Lydia had left were bits and pieces, shadows of her mother left over from childhood; the scent of her shampoo, the proper name and brand of the shade of red lipstick she preferred, what a caterpillar looked like curled up in the pale palm of her hand just before she released it. Little things like that, barely more than snapshots of a life far beyond her memory's cognizance.

An all-encompassing, full-bodied yawn reminded Lydia of the late hour. With conviction, she sat up straight in her chair and refocused her attention on her laptop, rearing herself up to get the words out on screen. However, she was only able to finish off a paragraph before the tedious nature of the task began to fray at her nerves again. Trying to blink away her fatigue, she slumped forward, resting her forehead on her arms. Little Lydia was collapsed in a similar state, parallel to her and propped against the mirror.

"Maybe if I just rest my eyes for a minute…" She mumbled— _to the doll, not herself because only crazy people talk to themselves_— before following her own advice.

Seconds later it seemed, though it very well could have been hours, a musical voice danced across her ears, jolting her to full consciousness despite its soft quality.

"_Lydia…"_

Honeyed eyes snapped open. Little Lydia was gone. The space she previously occupied on the vanity's surface was now empty. Brows furrowed, Lydia sat up and glanced around, considering the very real possibility that she accidentally knocked her over while dozed off. In her frenzied search for the doll, she found… _something else_ staring back at her. A spider the size of her fist descended from the ceiling slowly, the mass of its body facing her, utterly still while attached to the line of silk it was producing. There was no doubt in Lydia's mind as to whether or not it was aware of her presence.

It was black with bold white polka dots and it moved with purpose. As soon as its legs touched the ground, her bedroom door inched opened with a creak. Wasting no time, the spider departed. Before Lydia could follow it— _as following it was the only thing to do_— she hesitated. She wasn't ready. She needed something else. Quickly, without a second thought, the bottom-right drawer to her vanity was wrenched open and the skeleton key was placed back around her neck, where it belonged.

Then, she followed the spider through the shadowy halls of the Deetz residence; down one set of stairs, and then another, into her big. Dark. Room. Two steps ahead, the arachnid crawled beneath her workbench before she could get a better look at it and was gone from sight. Knowing what she would see before she saw it, Lydia pulled the bench out of the way, revealing that the spider had disappeared completely. When she placed the key in the lock, it fit and turned for her easily— as if it was ever going to do anything else.

Behind the little trap door, Lydia Deetz did not find a crawl space.


	2. Chapter 2

_Author's Note: _My betas for this chapter were the lovely **guidebetelgeuse** and **sadertits**(tumblr tag **pandacookie99**).

* * *

In the Neitherworld, there was a shift in the monotony.

Betelgeuse sat up in his spot in the Waiting Room, suddenly alert. Something had changed. What was it? An impatient snort flared his nostrils and he checked one of many his watches. It wasn't his wife's eighteenth birthday, so that alarm wasn't blaring yet. None of them were. That was just the one he was most eager to hear sound off. Restless, he brushed dust from the arms of his maroon tux, making an ineffective effort to distract himself from whatever disturbance had awoken him. How long had he been napping? Another watch check confirmed that nearly two years had passed in the Outerworld— the _living_ world, where his young _living_ wife resided; blooming and maturing and waiting, just for him.

_Wife._

The word still felt strange. A soft smile gentled his grimy features and he leaned further back into the groove of the couch, fiddling with his wedding band. It was an ouroboros carved out of white gold, a rattlesnake with ruby eyes. An omen for the end of times seemed as fitting an emblem for everlasting commitment as any. Usually, the radiant band was practically glowing with warmth, but today it was room temperature— no warmer or colder than the finger it adorned.

_Wait_.

The ring— his _wedding_ ring— the piece of jewelry that connected him to his living wife… was no longer warm. Panic, crisp and bleak, hit him like a bat to the back of the skull.

"JUNO!" He rasped, bursting through the door that separated ordinary stiffs from civil servants before making his way toward her office out of turn. If his wife was dead because he hadn't been there to protect her, he no longer had any reason to sit around waiting like a good boy._ "JUNO!" _He repeated just as obnoxiously as before as he barged into her office, interrupting her as she attempted to walk a newbie through the ins and outs of haunting.

"Learn ta live with 'em, sweetheart. You couldn't scare Bambi with a shotgun." With that bit of advice, the young ghoul was banished back to her designated haunt, leaving an irate caseworker alone with her least favorite poltergeist. "I need ya ta bump my appointment up ta _now_, Junebug. Time is a luxury you can no longer afford."

The decrepit spirit raised an unimpressed eyebrow his way, lighting a cigarette with one arm and gesturing for him to take a seat with the other. Betelgeuse, twitchy and anxious, did not heed the nonverbal demand. "May I ask what the rush is? You're not _legally_ allowed out of here yet. You know that."

"AHA!" The poltergeist jeered, pointing an accusatory clawed finger in her face as though he had just caught her in a damning lie. "THAT'S only if said non-deceased marital party remains unencumbered by any force and-or forcES that seek to relieve the non-deceased party of the burden of livelihood, IN WHICH CASE the deceased party may be granted CONJUGAL VISITATION RIGHTS to help ensure that the non-deceased party _remains_ non-deceased as per the terms of the original agreement, according to section seventy-four, subparagraph six, line—"

"Okay, okay, I get it!" Juno waved him off, rubbing her temple in an attempt to ward off the headache he was trying his absolute best to induce. "You don't have to quote it to me, I helped write the damn thing. What makes you think the girl is in trouble?"

Betelgeuse pulled back, allowing Juno space now that she was taking him seriously. "M'ring," he grumbled, hand twitching uncomfortably, unable to meet her gaze, "s'not warm anymore."

Surprisingly enough, Juno did not take advantage of this rare show of vulnerability. As easy and satisfying as it would have been to mock him for noticing something so embarrassingly small and sentimental, the caseworker was well aware of the symbolic significance of such an occurrence. Suddenly grim, she reached across the desk for her phone, held it to her ear, and started speaking without dialing any numbers.

"Carmen. Yeah, it's me. Who else would it be, ya dumb bimbo? Bring me the Deetz girl's file."

Minutes later, Miss Argentina strutted into Juno's office toting a manila folder that rivaled an encyclopedia in size and thickness.

"What do you need this for, Juno?" The beauty queen inquired, setting the file out on her boss' desk. There was an exotic lilt in her accent that added extra h's where there should not have been any. "I thought that the girl could not die, not since Betel-jerk got his hands on her."

Betelgeuse snarled, but the scathing comeback forming on his tongue was interrupted as Juno scowled and swatted at her receptionist, shooing the giggling gossiping ghoul from her office.

"You have gotten _really nosey_ in the past few decades, ya know that? Now get outta here, scram!" When she and the poltergeist were alone again, she dared to open the file— making absolutely certain that it was out of his direct line of sight. However, something she saw brought a gloom of dismay down on her shoulders.

"_Son of a bitch."_ A response like this did nothing to ease the poltergeist's unrest. A shadow came over her weary features, dark clouds swirling her stormy gaze. "I haven't seen anything like this in a… long time."

"What?" Betelgeuse barked, leaning almost out of his seat so that he might steal a peek at the highly confidential information. "What is it?! Lemme see!"

To have Juno perturbed, it had to be _something_. He knew the trouble had to be more critical than originally anticipated when without hesitation she turned the folder, letting him see the secret pages without a fight. Except for some itty bitty text at the top of the left page, the papers were blank. He had to squint to read it, but the material there was trivial. All it did was detail that after eating dinner and washing the dishes that night, his wife fell asleep at her desk while trying to finish her homework.

_Cute_. For brief seconds, he allowed himself to admire how fucking adorable his wife was before examining what it was that had Juno so troubled. The pages were _blank_. If she were dead, there would be a neat little paragraph describing her untimely demise, down to the last minute gory detail. Instead, empty white parchment stared up at him, ridiculing him with its enigmatic vacancy. He had personally never seen such a thing in any of his many years spent in civil servitude, but Juno obviously had, so he laid into her.

"Well? What's it mean?!" Rapidly, she snatched the folder back, depriving him of the opportunity to flip the pages over and divulge any further details about his wife's history that he wasn't supposed to be privy to.

"It could mean a lot of things," she began, closing the file and lighting a cigarette. The all-knowing guide into the mortal girl's life could not offer them any more insight than it already had. "It means she's not dead— _yet_. It definitely means that there's been some kind of supernatural interference. What kind of interference?" The caseworker shrugged, but there was nothing casual about it, and took a long, savoring drag from her smoke. "Who can say? The powers that be are no longer in control here. This is out of our jurisdiction."

Murderous intent darkened the poltergeist's jade eyes while contempt curled his upper lip. As appealing as the prospect of freedom currently was, it was dampened by the idea of _somebody else_ fucking with his darling wife before he could have a go at her. "Sounds like a _pretty fuckin' good reason_ t' grant me that early release, Junebug."

The disgusted curve of her wrinkled mouth as it twisted around the end of her cigarette revealed that despite the begrudging nature of her acceptance, she had come to the same conclusion as him. "Let me draw up the paperwork."

* * *

Instead of a crawl space, she found a tunnel.

It pulsated with electric blue energy, almost _alive_ as she crawled down its thrumming, narrow path. Enthralled, she continued on with eyes and mouth agape, only to come out the other end into a _perfect replica _of her dark room.

"What the…?"

The floodlights were on, bathing the room in bloody light. Everything was exactly as she was used to seeing it, but different somehow. More _vivid. _Cleaner. All of the equipment was untouched, as though no one had ever spent long tireless nights working here. A distant lyrical hum drew Lydia's attention toward the stairs. Past the curtain that protected the darkroom from outside light, she could hear sizzling and bubbling up above, as well as that persistent beautiful crooning.

In a daze, she ascended the stairs that just minutes before she'd chased the spider down, following the horribly nostalgic chanting. What she saw once she breached the entry to the kitchen made her heart clench and stutter, all color draining from her complexion.

"_Mom…?"_

Her voice cracked. The woman's back was facing her as she warbled a wordless song and fussed over a pot, but Lydia didn't need to see her face to know. Far too many years had been spent staring at that photograph to not recognize the bounty of sable hair that flowed down her back, the severe shade of red that coated those lips and fingernails. This was her mother. Her mother was here. _Her mother was here!_ A flood of heavy emotion kept her heart hammering and her feet frozen. Without warning, Lydia found she needed to grasp the edges of the doorway for stability. _Was this a dream? This couldn't be real. _

At the sound of her frightened, heartbroken call, the woman turned casually from her work, pausing her song. The pounding organ in the girl's chest stilled.

"Oh, sweetheart," she murmured sweetly, a gentle smile curling crimson lips. A beam of light caught the shiny, black buttons that made up her eyes and Lydia felt quite cold indeed. "I've been waiting for you."

Button-eyes or not, this was her _mother _and Lydia had seen enough strange and unusual things in her short life that she was beyond questioning it at the moment. With an anguished cry, she was across the room in an instant to fling her arms around her mother and bury her face in the woman's breast, hot tears dampening the black and white polka dot sweater she wore.

"Mom," she repeated, voice thick with messy tears, squeezing tight. "I missed you. I missed you _so much." _

Unseen by Lydia, the woman's pleasant countenance faltered in surprise at such a dramatic greeting. Then, she gentled once more and drew her arms around the girl to return the embrace. "Not as much as I missed you," she lied. "Promise."

It was unclear how long they stood within their clinging embrace, the girl sobbing incoherent nothings and the woman hushing her with soft reassurances as any good mother would. Eventually, the tears stopped coming. Lydia found the strength required to pull back from the hug to examine her mother's face, committing each minute detail to memory. She was exactly as the girl remembered her— or at least, she was identical to the scant photos that supplicated Lydia's woefully lacking recollection. Only one vital detail was amiss.

"Why…" She began, lifting a hand as though she meant to touch one of the horrific button-eyes. _"What happened…?"_

With rapid reflexes that made her flinch, the woman caught her searching limb by the wrist in a firm, unforgiving grip before it could make contact. Something unpleasant filtered over her beautiful face. Immediately— _catching herself— _Lydia's wrist was released and the offending hand came to stroke her pale cheek in a loving gesture.

"An evil spirit stole them from me, sweet girl. It's why I'm trapped here. Why I couldn't come for you sooner." Lydia'd had her fair share of experiences with malevolent spirits. Horror and sympathy for her mother's misfortune showed on her face, but before she could investigate further, the woman kept speaking and silenced any additional inquiries. "But I've been waiting for you, watching over you this whole time. I built this place _just for you_ so that we could be together again. Do you like it?"

"I…" Confused, still reeling from the shocking turn of events that had led her here, Lydia couldn't find the right answer immediately.

"Of course!" She derailed, patting the girl's cheek in sympathy. "You're overwhelmed! How silly of me."

Just then, an eerily smiling Delia waltzed through the doorway that led to the formal dining room. She wore a comedically accurate French maid outfit that was not at all sexualized. The hems were long and tight, not an inch of skin save for her hands and face exposed. She, too, wore buttons in lieu of actual eyes. If Lydia wasn't dumbfounded by the mere sight of her she likely would have broken into gales of laughter at the absurdity of her appearance. Snapping into a straight face, her mother wasted no time in giving the maid-Delia orders; set the table, put that there, put this here, etc. Unlike the _real_ Delia would have, this one obeyed each demand without question or complaint, ever smiling.

"That's… that's _Delia_… but… but she's…"

"I thought you would like her better this way," her mother clarified, the perfect line of her nose crinkling nastily. "I know _I_ do. Now go get your other father and tell him that supper's ready. I know you're hungry." She was. The peanut butter and jelly sandwich that had proven an inadequate dinner seemed so very far away. Still, Lydia hesitated, unable to break her gaze away from the perfect stranger wearing her mother's skin.

"Well, go on," she encouraged, beaming, pulling on an oven mitt. "He's in his study."

A Charles Deetz locked away in his study was a Charles Deetz that did not want to be disturbed. But this wasn't _him_, was it? This was someone else. Disoriented, but still cognizant of the surreal surroundings, Lydia was able to pick up slight differences here and there as she lurked up the stairs to where she knew she would find her other-father. The shadows were darker here, the lights brighter, colors more vibrant. Delia's "art" was conveniently— _desirably— _absent. Where framed photos usually hung of Delia and her father gallivanting on one of their numerous vacations, they now depicted Charles and his late wife doing those very same activities; dancing, drinking, laying out on the beach, celebrating their love. In each photo, a set of shiny plastic buttons stared back at her.

Ordinarily, Lydia would knock to get her father's attention. Tonight was not an ordinary night. Gingerly, she turned the knob and pushed the door open, hesitant to stick her head past the crack and get a look inside. "… hello?"

"Hellooo, Lydia," a lively masculine voice answered, happier to see her than Lydia could ever remember her _real_ father being. Predictably, he too wore buttons in his eye sockets. His sweater was a gaudy shade of orange and boasted cartoonish bats. Lydia adored it. The shelves that lined the walls of his study— previously filled with boring encyclopedias on law, property, and birds— were now dressed with famous horror novels and movies, some even Lydia didn't have in her extensive collection. His desk, which normally was messy with paperwork and other boring nonsense, was neat, nothing but a simple typewriter taking up its polished surface.

"Want to hear my new poem?"

Suspicious of the doppelgänger for reasons she couldn't quite define, Lydia lingered in the doorway despite his welcoming airs. "My father doesn't like poetry."

"_Everyone_ likes poetry!" He dismissed her claim, spinning around in his desk chair animatedly as if overcome by his love of the art. Rapidly, the familiar hands of her father moved over the typewriter. Within seconds, he had a rudimentary rhyme for her.

"_One little, two little,  
__Three little pumpkins,  
__Four little, five little,  
__Six little pumpkins,  
__Seven little, eight little,  
__Nine little pumpkins,  
__Ten pumpkins on the vine— and look!  
__This one's mine!" _

Her face must have read some sort of displeasure because her other-father frowned deeply before returning to the typewriter, presumably to whip up something more agreeable to her tastes.

"I'm sorry, but," Lydia interrupted, finally stepping into the room and stopping just short of tapping his shoulder. "She— uhm… _Mom _said to tell you that food's ready."

"Oh, boy!" He burst out in excitement, forcing Lydia to smile in reaction to his sheer unbridled joy. It was infectious. Nevertheless, a seed of unease remained. "I could eat a horse!"

* * *

Dinner was a dazzling affair. Succulent roasted meats, steaming rolls, and crisp, fresh vegetables filled up the entire table with enough food to sustain one of Delia's fancy dinner parties, and then some. Her stepmother never would have served this much fat to that kind of hoity-toity crowd, though. Speaking of, other-Delia did not join them. Instead, she stood mute and still in the corner of the room while wearing that persistent smile and awaiting further orders. Lydia was given the seat of honor at the head of the table while her mother and other-father flanked her sides.

"How is everything, dear?" Her mother asked as Lydia gorged herself, her own plate empty.

"Delicious," Lydia answered through a full mouth, eyes drifting shut in pleasure as she took another voracious bite of savory chicken.

"Is there anything _else_ that would make you happy? Sweet potatoes? Carrots? Corn on the cob?"

The center setting rotated with each suggestion, tempting Lydia with their vivid coloring and delicious smells, nevermind that her plate was already overflowing with the otherworldly bounty of food. It didn't look real, but it _tasted_ real and that's all that mattered to her stomach. She was fairly certain at this point that she was dreaming, but everything felt so sincere and palpable that she had long since resigned herself to enjoying the vivid hallucination for what it was.

"I'm _really_ thirsty."

"Of course," her mother readily agreed, eager to please, "any requests?"

_Hmm. _Time to get to know her mother. How traditional was this woman, really? She certainly played the part of a mother well. "Wine?"

The bloody line of her mother's mouth quirked into a mischievous smirk. "Maybe when you're _older. _You," she called for the other-Delia, snapping her fingers rudely, "fetch my daughter some non-alcoholic sangria."

Jumping to, other-Delia brought her a dark purplish red liquid in a fanciful wine glass, then cleared her plate away while the girl guzzled the sweet punch down. It was satisfying beyond words to see Delia so unnaturally subservient. Her mother was quick to come and replace it with an entire layered cake, decorated meticulously with rich butter creme frosting, the perimeter aglow with candles. Right before her eyes, the words **Welcome home!**materialized in the frosting in a pretty cursive without anyone spelling them out.

"Home?"

Other-Charles stood behind his late wife's chair, caressing her shoulders in support. Their body language was so painfully hopeful. They made a beautiful couple. Lydia wished very badly that she could remember what they looked like together when her mother was still alive. If only there was an iota of love in those cold, button eyes.

"We've been waiting for you, Lydia."

"I was waiting for _you_," she snapped back without missing a beat, aiming something akin to hurt at the both of them. "I saw ghosts everywhere, everywhere I went— but I never saw _you. _Why?"

Her mother flinched at the sharp barb, unprepared for a response like _that_.

"I told you," she reiterated firmly, chewing her words, "I'm _trapped_ here. Do you think I _like _it? Do you think I _want this?!" _For a moment, her temper flared, causing everyone in the room to shrink, but she quickly took control of herself. "I only want to be with you, Lydia. We both do." Her other-father's hand squeezed her mother's shoulders in support. "So very much."

"I'm sorry," Lydia apologized quickly, rubbing her face and eyes. "I'm just… I'm tired, and this is _a lot." _

"Of course, of course," her mother conceded with patience and understanding, ushering her up and away from the table. "You've had such a long day. You must be exhausted, but don't worry." Her arm felt bony around Lydia's shoulders. "Your bedroom's all made up and ready for you."

"Come along, sleepyhead," her other-father cajoled gently, both he and her mother leading her up the stairs.

Just as everything else in the house, her bedroom was the same— _but not. _The string of paper bats she cut out of construction paper to decorate her walls came alive to fly through the air, tittering _"hello, Lydia! Hello, hello, hello!" _but flew too quickly for her to reach out and try to catch one. The photo of Adam and Barbara tucked into the pane of her vanity offered her friendly waves and sweet smiles, but they did not speak. _"Sveet dreams, boo-tiful," _a realistic miniature Drac crooned to her, before enclosing himself in his polished coffin just as her mother pulled the covers up to her chin.

The bed was her own, but deeper and softer, with jersey sheets that Delia would not have approved of. Sleep took her quickly while two pairs of identical black buttons gleamed over her prone form.

"See you soon."

* * *

_"It is seven a.m. Bwahaha…"_

Lydia awoke clinging to her mini-me like a child would a teddy bear, wrapped in luxurious wine-colored silk and soaked with sweat. Her flesh burned feverishly and a deep panging ache throbbed her temples. Sickness had taken hold while she slept, no doubt caused by her bike ride through the freezing rain. It took longer than usual to bring herself to slap the Count back into his coffin. Every part of her wanted to curl back beneath the covers and let go of consciousness once more— return to the beautiful dollhouse her poor, jailed mother worked so hard to build for her. Unfortunately, there was an intruder lurking in her mirror that was in… _disagreement_ with this notion.

"Long time no see, babe," a horrifically familiar, gritty voice called from her looking glass.

She gasped, flailing clumsily in her efforts to push through the heavy blankets and sit up straight. There he was, just as filthy, fat, and crude as ever, bedecked in that dingy black-and-white striped suit that had never seen a washing. A cigarette hung from the corner of his grimy mouth, smoke seeping right past the layer of glass that appeared to keep him trapped. The eyes of a predator glared over her, electric and wild. There was nothing pleasant in his expression to give her any kind of relief. Only hunger… and _suspicion. _

"Naughty, naughty girl." Her fever was suddenly all the more apparent. "What kind o' _trouble_ you been gettin' yourself into?"


	3. Chapter 3

_Author's Note: _My betas for this chapter were **GuideBetelgeuse** and **Sadertits**.

* * *

Betelgeuse arrived in the mirror before the sun could breach the horizon. Monumental relief coursed through him at the sight of his wife asleep in her bed, all cozy and sweetly nestled, not a care in the world. Things wouldn't remain that way for her for long, so he smoked, kept his mouth shut, and let her sleep. However, warmth refused to return to his ring. He had grown accustomed to the glowing embrace around his finger and was irate that something had happened to disturb it. How had their connection been tampered with? She was still _here. _She was still _breathing_. He could see her chest rise and fall with each one, proving her humanity. _Up and down, in and out. _Over and over and over again.

It was hypnotic. She was lovely, much lovelier a wife than someone like him had any right to. This was the closest he had come to her in years, the only opportunity he had ever had to simply watch her, them both unencumbered by outside distractions. It wasn't like long ago when she would sneak into the attic late at night— _his lair at the time— _and stick her nose in the handbook, meddling around in things little human girls ought not to be meddling in. Apparently, she still hadn't learned her lesson.

When that awful, adorable alarm started croaking, he was jarred from his revery not by the Count's obnoxious laughter, but by the hum of energy that returned to his ring. _It was warm again. _What in the ever-living fuck was going on here? The not knowing was driving him deeper down the rabbit hole of insanity than he was comfortable with. It was time for the little woman to _explain herself_.

Impatient, though it didn't show in his tone or body language, he wasted no time in alerting her to his presence. She was predictably flustered by the nasty surprise, maybe a bit pinker in the cheeks than he was expecting. _Beautiful. _

"You." Her eyes were wide. She was trembling, drowning in that sea of silk. If he didn't know any better, he would think she was scared. Lydia had never been scared of him before. How utterly delicious.

"_Me," _he confirmed and unable to help himself any longer, a foul grin cracked across his moss besotted face. "Y'gonna lay those B-words on me so I can give ya a _proper_ hello?"It was a shot in the dark, but he wouldn't be him if he didn't ask.

"I— I— I—" A string of messy, squeaky sneezes interrupted the infinite loop she was stuck on. Betelgeuse frowned severely. Was she sick?Was that the reason for her flushed cheeks and quivering, not some misplaced fear of him? _Disappointing, _but apt. She was a brave little thing, his Lydia. Fussily, she scrambled for a tissue from her nightstand, wide eyes locked unflinchingly on him as she wiped her nose clean. There were deep shadows beneath them, incongruent with how deeply she seemed to be resting just seconds before. "Why are you here?"

The day Lydia Deetz dreaded for so long had finally arrived. Her husband had come to collect. _What? _She wasn't sure she wanted to know.

"Ain't it obvious?" He drawled, amused, tapping his gritty claws on the mirror's surface. "I'm _dyin' _ta go on our honeymoon! I gotta tell ya, babe, that waiting room is _Hell. _Complete n' utter _Hell. _But don't worry, I ain't mad atcha. Ain't yer fault y'got cold feet. Who could blame ya? Tall, dark, handsome beast like m'self at yer side, any broad woulda— wait— _hey! The fuck you think yer doin'?!" _

"I don't have time for this," Lydia muttered quickly, eyes downcast with something akin to guilt as she draped a blanket over the vanity, blocking him from view. He was trapped. If he could be outside of that mirror, he would be, but he _couldn't. _That much was clear to her without the need of explanation. "I have to go to school."

Her attendance record was clean enough that she could have spared a sick day, but a wild poltergeist popping up in her mirror and making talk of _honeymoons_ had made the decision for her. Of the two evils, he was obviously the greater.

"_SCHOOL-SHMOOL!" _The irate spirit howled, causing wood and glass to bristle. _"Lemme outta here! _You n' I got _shit _we need t'talk about!"

"Then you'll just have to be patient and wait until I come back." Her voice sounded calmer than she felt, albeit sniffling. Confident that he couldn't see her judging by his continued furious blustering, she stripped from the nightgown to don her uniform, aiming a leery gaze at the covered vanity intermittently throughout the process. Her muscles ached and head throbbed. Today was sure to be another miserable day in the long line of miserable days that comprised her short, unhappy life.

"— and _another thing! _You _owe me_, little girl! Y'think I don't remember the way y'stood there n' didn't do nothin' while those losers crashed our party! _Think again! Oooohohoho, _you've got another thing comin' whenever I get th'fuck outta here! Just wait till I get my hands on—"

The blanket keeping his view obscured was yanked away, revealing a stern, exhaustedLydia. Whatever he saw in her shadowy gaze worked to silence him.

"I'm _sorry_, okay?"

Was he hearing things? Surely he was hallucinating. Nobody apologized to _him._

"You're right. We had a deal and I fucked you over. It was wrong. I shouldn't have done that."

If Betelgeuse had any heartbeat to speak of, it would have been racing. He threatens her… and she apologizes? Any remnants of bitterness or indignation toward his wife that he'd been holding onto melted away in an instant, no matter how much he would have liked to cling to it. He was a vengeful creature by nature, but he couldn't stay mad at her. Not when she stood there so frail and breakable, bending to the whims of his rage so easily.

"That being said," she continued, some of her steely facade dissolving as she rubbed at her eyes, looking so very, very tired. "I still have to go to school, and I don't think I can trust you enough to let you out... _Yet." _

_Oh. _That was certainly encouraging. Cool as a cucumber, he stuffed his hands in his pockets and cozied up to the perimeter of the mirror, suddenly much more agreeable. "I dunno, sugar," he droned, taking a long look at her, head to hips where the edge of the vanity cut her off, "you're not lookin' too hot. I think y'oughta _stay in." _

Lydia visibly blanched at the suggestion. How did he manage to make everything he said sound like a sexual proposition? It was impressive. As tempting as the idea of crawling back into bed was, the prospect of facing her husband and discussing the semantics of their marriage was horrifying enough to keep her from indulging. Nevertheless, something that might have been a smirk flashed across her face at his antics. "Nice try."

"_Lydia, dear?" _Her eyes went large with panic, flickering back and forth between the unlocked door and her infested mirror. _Please_, she mouthed to him, begging. _That was nice_. That was even better than the apology. He could get used to this. What was a little more time spent in subjugation if it meant his little wife was going to be giving him the royal treatment when he got out? _"Is that… did I hear a man's voice in there just now?"_

"It was just Drac, Delia." Betelgeuse's smarmy grin deepened at the show of deception, but he remained obediently silent at his poor wife's behest. Her stepmother, appeased by the lie, spoke no more on the subject and disappeared down the hall. "I have to go," Lydia reiterated, already on her way out the door. "We'll talk later."

It was not beyond Betelgeuse's notice that in the last moments before his wife made her hasty escape, she bothered to stuff a black-haired doll into her book bag. _Strange._

* * *

Lydia had made a mistake. She should have stayed home. Betelgeuse would have been easier to deal with than _this. _

Stubborn to a fault, she rode her bike to school instead of asking her father and Delia for a ride, at least having the good sense to grab her coat and scarf this time. After all, if they realized she was sick, they might have insisted upon her staying home. Probably not, but the possibility couldn't be chanced. _Stupid._

By the time she filtered into class with the rest of the students, she was ready to collapse. Miss Shannon was, as usual, lacking sympathy.

"_My essay?" _She had demanded, palm outstretched expectantly.

Lydia had completely forgotten, too taken by otherworldly pursuits. Dumbly, disoriented, she stared back and forth from the wrinkled hand to her teacher's coke bottle glasses. _"I don't have it." _

This earned her a one-way ticket to ISS. Do not pass _GO_, do not collect two-hundred dollars. _Insubordination_, Miss Shannon called it. _Betelgeuse probably would have been proud, _Lydia considered defiantly as she trudged toward the ill-used classroom at the end of the hall, before blotting him from her mind. Or, at least making the effort to.

Miss Cooke, the detention curator, was much younger and prettier than Miss Shannon. This didn't make her any kinder. She had curly dishwater blonde hair, a fresh manicure, and a cellphone surgically attached to her ear. When Lydia made her entrance, Miss Cooke scarcely raised her eyes from her tablet to sneer in a way that dampened her beauty, then gesture vaguely at the chalkboard behind her before returning to her very important conversation about the cute barista who made her coffee that morning.

**1\. No talking. **

**2\. Pick a seat and stay there.**

**3\. No food or drink allowed.**

**4\. No sleeping. **

**Restroom break times are at 11:30 AM and 2:30 PM. Any requests to leave will be denied. **

There was a trio of blonde girls seated near the back of the room on their cellphones, giggling and chatting quietly but audibly, seemingly immune to the rules. Lydia recognized each of them with acute distinction and chose instead to sit towards the front, two seats away from a tall girl with a noticeable overbite, and her shorter friend who looked like she was related to Miss Shannon in some way with her frizzy orange hair and poor vision.

"— _what a freak."_

"— _wonder what she did to get in here?"_

"— _probably tried to stick her fangs in someone's neck."_

This was Hell. All Lydia wanted was to bury her face in her arms, forget about everything, and succumb to sleep. The first and only time she tried, Miss Cooke cleared her throat loudly and snapped her ruler against the board, as if the words up there mattered. Claire and her cronies giggled indulgently at this with no reprimand. The mute, mousy girls at her side might have offered sympathetic glances, but they were gone too quickly to mean anything.

In a near-delirious haze, Lydia fell into a waking coma as she stared straight ahead, unblinking, slumped half-dead in her seat. Everything else faded into a dull buzz, pushed to the backburner. _Was any of it real? _Did she _really_ spend the night eating dinner with her dead mother in a twisted, more beautiful parallel reality? Did she _really _awaken to find Betelgeuse sleazing out in her mirror? Was she even sitting in ISS this very moment? Maybe she was still dreaming. Maybe she'd died in her sleep and was stuck in a nightmare. There was no mention of such a phenomenon in the handbook, but Lydia wasn't ready to discount anything.

Incognizant of her actions, she pressed the sharp point of her pencil into her thumb, only realizing what she had done once blood was drawn. Petty satisfaction was taken in smearing the rusty stain across the corner of her paper, the one that was supposed to contain her essay on _The Importance of Punctuality. _In her esteemed opinion, it made a much more fitting signature than her usual loping cursive.

"Who needs to use the ladies' room?"

Every girl's arm was in the air. Miss Cooke's eyes rolled as if she was expecting some other answer. "Go," she scoffed, put out by the very existence of her students. "If you little brats aren't back in your seats in ten minutes, you can expect to be back in here tomorrow as well."

* * *

A splash of frigid water from the sink felt good against her flushed cheeks but did nothing to clear her head. Not even half the school day was over. She'd yet to make any sort of leeway on her essay. For that matter, all the rest of her schoolwork had been ignored as well. It seemed… unimportant.

"Like… is that a _doll?" _Quick as a snake, Claire struck, darting a tan, manicured hand out to steal Lydia's mini-me from where she was hanging past the zipper of her backpack. Her heart sunk into her gut. "Wow. Stacy, Debbie, look at this! She made a _doll of herself. _Oh. Em. Gee. Have you ever in your life heard of anything _so_ pathetic. I could _die!"_

_That could be arranged, _a voice that sounded suspiciously like Betelgeuse's whispered in the back of her skull, and Lydia glanced back and forth with irrational suspicion. The mean girls broke into cruel gales of laughter, picking and poking at the miniature Lydia while the real one watched on in abject horror.

"S-stop that, Claire," the girl she now knew to be called Prudence stuttered out with what Lydia could only assume was uncharacteristic bravery. "That's not yours."

Stacy took over against the diminutive ginger. "What're you gonna do about it, four-eyes? _Snitch?" _That was exactly what Prudence had in mind. Bravery exhausted, she melted into the background, once more a quiet mouse.

"What should we do with it?" Debbie produced a lighter from her Gucci handbag and held the flame inches away from little Lydia's yarn hair. "I say _burn it. _That freak probably put some kind of curse on it, anyway."

"Put that away, you ditz," Claire derided. "Smoke will set off the fire alarms, and like, my dad'll be _pissed_ if I get any more ISS."

"_I'm getting Miss Shannon," _the one called Bertha announced quietly, but with determination, before disappearing through the bathroom door.

"I say…" Claire turned the doll this way and that, her pretty head tilted in consideration. "We stuff it down the toilet. I mean, it is a _piece of shit." _

Time froze to a standstill for Lydia. The blondes turned away from her toward a stall, cackling fiendishly as though they really meant to go through with their atrocious plan of action. Sudden and cold, something inside of her snapped.

With a guttural cry that she didn't know she was capable of, she surged forward and curled an angry fist into Claire's silky bleached blonde hair, yanking back hard. Before anyone knew what was happening, they were a tangle of angry female hormones on the germ infested bathroom floor. Lydia was so preoccupied trying to pry Claire's fingers apart and make her release the doll that the other girl was able to land a hard, close-handed punch right on her mouth. Lydia barely felt it, running on pure adrenaline and too caught up with her imperative task, but was vaguely aware of something warm and wet dripping down her chin. After a valiant struggle, she was successful and little Lydia was back in her possession— _where she belonged. _

"MISS DEETZ! MISS BREWSTER! _WHAT ON EARTH_ DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?!"

The girls froze— the raven-haired one straddled atop the blonde— and brought dual gazes up to the open door, where a scandalized Miss Shannon stood eyeing them down as though they were a couple of filthy animals sullying the sanctity of her pristine school. They might as well have been, brawling mindlessly on the bathroom floor like that. Then, uncaring of the presence of their authoritative audience, Lydia lost her goddamn mind and drew her elbow back, slugging Claire in the face as hard as she possibly could with her ring-bearing fist.

In the end, she wound up with a week's suspension while Claire only got three days. _It was worth it._

* * *

Delia was the parent responsible for retrieving her from Miss Shannon's office. Unsurprising. Her father was probably too busy. The ride home was short and tense.

"Are you going to tell me _why_ you did that?"

"…"

"You can _talk_ to me, Lydia. I might be on your side. You'll never know if you don't _talk_ to me." Her stepmother's frustration was mounting.

"…"

"Fine," she gave up, focusing her icy gaze on the empty road. "Be that way."

The car door was slammed with more force than necessary upon their arrival home. Lydia bypassed her father in the living room— _waiting to scold her no doubt_— and went straight for her darkroom, ignoring any complaints from either irate parent. They had the right to be upset with her, she knew, but their distress was irrelevant. _Unimportant. _ She was single-minded in her charge down the stairs, so much so that she stumbled over the last step and crashed into a bench, bruising her ribs. There was only one place she wanted to be, only one person she wanted to talk to. On the brink of tears, she yanked back the bench and stuffed the skeleton key— still hanging around her neck— into the padlock.

Behind the little trapdoor, all Lydia found was a wall of brick; cold, harsh, and unforgiving. Broken, she curled against it, sobbing harder than she had her entire life.

* * *

It was hours before she unlocked the door to her darkroom and ascended to face the music. Predictably so, she was grounded for the entirety of her suspension. _As if she had any friends to see or places to be. _It seemed a light punishment in Lydia's opinion, but it wasn't as though she was about to argue in favor of a heavier sentence. Maybe they were just taking pity on her. She definitely looked a miserable sight with her more pallid than usual complexion, split lip, and bloodied white blouse. The swelling around her eyes from obvious crying didn't do anything to help.

Betelgeuse was sure to think she was even more pathetic than he already did. Fearless of the possibility of taunting, she didn't hesitate in entering her bedroom and sitting right down at her vanity. Almost immediately, he materialized; slimy and smirking, just as she had left him. However, when those wild jade eyes took in her state of disarray, his near-pleasant countenance deteriorated. The air crackled with power, even through his mirror-cage. Matted white-blond hair stood on end, and grimy lips curled into a vicious sneer. Lydia cut him off before he could start, in no mood for bullshit.

"You want to talk? Let's talk."


	4. Chapter 4

_How dare she come to him like this?! _And leave him locked up as well? Inexcusable! His forgiving, pretty trouble-magnet wife whom he waited with fierce impatience for had finally returned to him… but with drops of _blood_ dried on the collar of her little school blouse. That highly biteable bottom lips of hers was darker, swollen, and split right off the center. These were the first things he noticed and alone they were enough to enrage, but then he looked more closely saw how the flesh near her eyes was just as pink and puffy as it was sallow with exhaustion. Lydia had been crying. A lot. Someone _hit_ her and made her _cry_. _His wife?! _The sheer audacity of it sank in, flooding him with so much prideful masculine rage that he couldn't see straight.

"Lemme out," he growled, low and serious, with unquestionable authority. He wasn't asking, he was telling— _and he expected her to listen_. It almost worked.

"No," she denied after several beats dragged on, staring in amaze at his pluck. "You might hurt someone. I need to know you won't hurt anyone."

"Hurt?" He spat, glaring down at his doe-eyed wife while drawing up to his full height in the silvery glass, "m'gonna fuckin' _kill someone. _Real slow._" _His volume never rose from that gritty snarl. A cigarette was pulled from the ether, placed between, mossy lips, and lit with a snap, motions easy and smooth as anything. "Disembowel. Chop off a thumb r'two. Dust off the ol' iron maiden—"

"This isn't helping your case."

"_Who hit you?" _

Lydia was so shocked by the source of his upset that she was struck dumb for a moment, before uttering an incredulous, "… _what? _No one! It doesn't matter. Why are you even here? Why do you need _me_ to let you out? Isn't that the entire reason we got married? So you could come and go as you like without the whole Bloody Mary deal?"

Betelgeuse scowled, displeased with this setup. She denies him answers, then demands the same from him? That's just not how this was going to work. Who did she think she was? Cruelly dismissive, he snorted and somehow managed to tap his ash directly onto her desk through the glass. Lydia was not amused.

"Next thing I know yer gonna tell me y'walked into a wall. S'bad enough comin' home n' learnin' m'wife ain't been faithful t'me, but the _limp-dicked, homewreckin' sonuvabitch's _been smackin' her around too?" He chuckled in an obscenely light-hearted fashion that didn't betray a bit of malice. "Now, quit pullin' m'dick n' gimme the lil shit's name, honey."

There were so many things wrong with everything he just said that Lydia didn't quite know where to begin. After blinking slowly with something a little less flattering than awe, mouth agape, she found the proper words to lay into him. The dead man seemed hellbent on earning her ire and so she let him have it, flinging the very last of whatever remained of her depleted emotional well.

"I don't have a _boyfriend_—!"

It seemed fitting to disillusion her husband of this first, though she flustered that he was forcing her to admit the embarrassing truth this early on.

"I go to an _all-girls _school because of you! Even if I didhave a boyfriend, it wouldn't be any of your business because _this_ is not _that_ kind of marriage! There will be no kissing, no dates, no hand holding, nothing of the sort. I will date _whoever_ I want—" _not that anyone wants to date me _"—and you're free to do the same. _Marriage of inconvenience_, remember? You _do_ know what that means, right? It means…"

Disinterested in her set of rules— _it was cute, really— _Betelgeuse's fickle attention span drifted from the adorable girl to her room, analyzing little details here and there as she babbled on. It was a relief that he didn't have a pimply faced teenage rival to squash, but the question of which breathing vermin had dared strike _his_ wife still burned at the back of his skull.

"— and for that matter… are you even listening to me?"

"Ain't you a lil old t'be playin' with dolls?" Not that Betelgeuse would begrudge her for keeping such an infantile, darling hobby, but something about the baby doll sized version of his wife— _peeking out from the open zipper of her backpack, staring right through him with those creepy button eyes_— made him uneasy.

"Aren't _you_ a little old to be hanging out in my mirror?" Immediately on the defensive, Lydia snapped back, scrambled to gather her backpack, and shut the zipper. _Where did he get off making fun of Little Lydia like that? _Jerk.

"Ain't ever gonna be too old for that," he returned with a sleazy wink and grin, "_doll._"

No, he had very clearly not been listening, or else he would have heard her _explicitly forbid_ cutesy nicknames like that. Or, he heard and he just didn't care. Letting out a groan of frustration, her pallid face dropped down to her palms, and the persistent headache she had been battling all day throbbed at full force. "This conversation isn't going anywhere."

Something like guilt plucked at Betelgeuse's long-dead conscience, which was beyond unfair considering he _hadn't even done anything. _She was just so miserable and defeated, beat up and sick, a truly piteous sight. Prickling people while they were down was usually fun… but not this time. Grimacing, the ghoul proceeded to offer up a compromise. She could have her answers first. Maybe that would get rid of that nagging discomfort in the center of his chest.

"Aaalright, alright, alright… here's the deal, babes—" as effectively as she was currently garnering his sympathy, the pet names were non-negotiable. "I ain't goin' anywhere. _Literally. _M'stuck right here in this mirror. Been here all day waitin' for ya. Wasn't even due for release for another couple years or so, but eh… extenuating circumstances cut through _that_ band o' red tape."

_A couple years? Extenuating circumstances? _Lydia blinked, having risen up to listen intently to what he had to say. This was inevitable, then. He was always going to come back. Leaving her behind was never in the books. That he was trapped in her vanity until he was called upon was additionally horrifying to conceive, but she shelved those thoughts in order to soak in whatever information he had for her.

"Nobody can lemme out or put me back but you. You're th'only one. The whole _'Bloody Mary' _deal is finito, over, _done_. Even if y'did lemme out, can't haunt too far from ya or this lil buddy—" he waggled his fingers, showing off a gleaming wedding band that Lydia couldn't recall placing on him "— will drag me _all the way back_ t'yer side. N' _that's _how this works."

_Wow. _If Lydia understood the way he was explaining this to her correctly, that gave her an awful lot of power over him.

"What if I just smashed the mirror? What would happen then?" She _wouldn't_. The antique once belonged to her mother, but curiosity couldn't be helped.

"C'mon, honey, why y'gotta bust m'balls like that?" The vulgar not-answer only thinly disguised his ignorance. He didn't know and wasn't sure he wanted to. Powerful as he was, he would probably fare alright. _Probably. _

"Just curious. I'm not gonna _do it… _I still don't understand. Why marry me if _that's _all you're getting out of it? Seems like a shit deal. I mean, what if I just never let you out? What if I sold my vanity on craigslist or something? There's a lot of room for error here on your end of things."

All of these possibilities and then some had already occurred to the poltergeist, but sheer hubris convinced him that they were non-issues. It was true that he didn't know his wife as well as he would have liked to, but he was _intimately familiar_ with her bleeding heart. It wasn't in her to keep prisoners. He was well aware before taking the plunge that all he would need is some pretty words and reassurances, and she would let him out. She was already softening to him, the edge leaking out of her voice to make room for less volatile emotions the longer they kept talking. It was only a matter of time.

"Cookie, when ya've been dead as long as I have, the deal we've got goin' on starts lookin' _real fuckin' sweet. _'Sides," he threw on his charming face and granted her a genuine grin, "I _like_ ya." Heat flooded those pale cheeks and Betelgeuse picked up the change with sharp interest. "Y'wouldn't do none o' that shit. Not t'me. Would ya, kitten?" He cajoled gently, playing on her sympathies. After several long silent beats where Lydia avoided meeting his gaze, brows knitted in consideration, she shook her head. _No. _His grin expanded. "That's what I thought. Any more questions?"

_So many_, but they all blanked upon him asking. _No_, she shook her head again, at a momentary loss for words.

"Good! Now s'my turn. _Who hit you?" _

With her curiosity sated, though not in a way that was at all satisfactory, Lydia could find no more excuses to ignore the subject.

"A girl at school," she admitted, eyes downcast. "I got into a fight. I'm suspended."

"Schoolgirl catfight, huh? _Hot stuff. _Pics or it didn't happen."

"_Oh my God." _She broke into a string of absurd giggles despite herself, and Betelgeuse beamed that he was able to get a laugh out of her, even if it did come off a little deranged. A tuft of soft, raven hair shook loose as her head turned side to side in disagreement for a third time, laughter dying, as if to saying _No_ to everything.

"Today has been a fever dream." Maybe that's what the surreal vision of her mother was; a vivid hallucination brought upon by sickness. Dwelling on it made her sad, until whatever remained of the unlikely smile Betelgeuse gave her dimmed to nothing.

"I _am_ sorry." Large guilty eyes flickered back up to meet his and there was no need for further clarification as to what she was apologizing for. "I didn't _mean _to back out. It was an accident. Gut reaction kind of thing. Everything happened so _fast_ and— I don't know, I just… I didn't think it was going to be like _that_… and then Barb… and the—" _sandworm. _

"Ehhh forget about it, babe. S'old news. No skin off my nose."

This wasn't always the case. In truth, he had spent many months following the incident fantasizing about how he might get his revenge on the little woman. They started off violent, then turned sexual in accordance with his nature. Eventually, much of that initial animosity was shelved and forgotten, leaving a well of unsatisfied curiosity and lust. Not to mention the implied possession of her that lied behind all these more passionate emotions_._

Clearly, Lydia wasn't ready to accept any of _that_, and Betelgeuse was smart enough to know when to play which cards. For now, he would just have to toe the line of her pathetic, half-hearted "rules." Get her used to the idea of it. It's not like he was going anywhere, and he wasn't _about_ to let any inbred redneck fuck hone in on his territory. However, he wouldn't be able to do anything about any potential suitors if she didn't hurry up and free him from his reflective snare.

"Tell y'what; lemme outta here n' we can forget all about it. Wipe th'slate clean, start from scratch, begin anew n' all that sappy shit. Deal?"

Suspicion flared up at the use of that word, and it showed in her hesitation. They didn't have the greatest history when it came to making deals.

"You killed Sarah and Maxie Dean," she stated simply after a while and was horrified with herself that this alone wasn't enough to completely dissuade her from the idea of freeing him. _Never really liked them anyway, _a conspiratory voice whispered in the darker part of her conscience. _That doesn't mean they deserved to die, _she argued uselessly, only for the voice to hissback; _semantics. _

"Got a secret for ya, babe," he chuckled darkly and clenched the butt of his cigarette between his teeth until the cherry tilted up. _"One-hundred percent o' people die. _All I did was speed along th'process. 'Sides, they didn't seem t'have no qualms with offin' four-eyes n' hot-tits, in a much more eh… _permanent _sense."

"It's not the same. They didn't know what they were doing."

Then again, her father's not-so-dearly departed boss hadn't been disturbed enough by the sight of Mr. and Mrs. Maitland's deteriorating spirit stuff to bother speaking up and putting a stop to it. They were just a show to the apathetic businessman and his spoiled trophy wife, little more than a cheap thrill on a Saturday night. Wasn't it fair of Betelgeuse to turn _them_ into a show in turn? Lydia's rigid moral compass was wavering, conflicting emotions reading clear as day across her pallor. Betelgeuse was quick to capitalize on it.

"If yer lookin' for an apology, sweetcheeks, y'ain't gonna get one. Ain't sorry n' I'd do it all again if I had ta. _But_— I can give ya this if it'll keep that pretty lil conscience clear." What he said next took a great deal of effort, despite the crossed fingers on the outside of his edge of the mirror marking it as a lie. "I," he swallowed, then let out a deep, unnecessary breath, "will not… _hurt_… anyone."

"Or kill?" She added quickly, wary of loopholes.

"Or kill," he agreed, eyes rolling.

"Promise?"

She seemed so _bright_ and _hopeful,_ despite the shroud of misery carried along with it. The foolish little _vixen_ really, truly, honestly believed that his word alone was enough. That if he made this promise he would keep it. She _wanted_ it to be true, which meant that some part of her, tiny as it may be, _wanted to let him out._ His grimace deepened and the sneaky fingers beyond her sight uncrossed.

"Promise."

Relief smoothed over her pinched, stressed features, and Betelgeuse— _more than ready for his impending release— _cracked his neck in one direction, then the other, limbering up.

"One more thing," she rushed out before he could get _too_ excited, chastising herself for forgetting such an important detail in the midst of all the negotiating. "My parents. They can't know you're here. It's— it's just too much."

"Sure," he agreed readily, smug and curt, much as he had the first and only time she had ever summoned him. This rule, at least, was easy enough compared to all of his wife's other binding stipulations— _but they were gonna work on that. _Maybe a little marriage counseling would do them some good.

"Betelgeuse… Betelgeuse…" There was a hesitation. Searching, she spared one last deep gaze into those dark, sunken eyes before daring to actually go through with it. Whatever she saw must have satisfied. With a shuddering breath, the last incantation of his name was released. _"… Betelgeuse."_

A ferocious grin cracked across his moss-dappled complexion, giving Lydia the sinking impression that she had just made a terrible mistake. His image faded out to be replaced by her own anxiety-ridden, sickly visage and the vanity began to tremble violently, knocking various items to the ground as it shook. Electric green light, identical to what peeked out at her from beneath the attic's door those years ago, burst forth from the glassy surface in a blinding flash. _It was time to move_. Clumsily, she rushed out of the way just in time for the striped vagabond to come somersaulting through the mirror. He stuck the landing effortlessly, but with a heavy _thump_ that denoted his significant weight and lack of grace.

"WHOO!" He shouted out into the room upon gathering his bearings, seemingly having already forgotten the promise to keep his presence a secret from her parents. "Does it feel _goooood_ t'get outta there, I tell ya. _Goddamn_, Jesus, Mary n' Joseph, could I use a fuckin' drink."

He found Lydia then; shy and wide-eyed, observing from the opposite end of the room as though he were a venomous snake that had slithered in under her notice, and she now had to figure out how to take care of the infestation. It was much easier to remain lax in his company when there was an impenetrable barrier of glass and magic keeping them apart. Or when when he was bug sized. Now, with his powerful aura choking the atmosphere, filling up every inch of her space, things were very different.

But he _liked_ her, right? There was nothing to be worried about. This is what Lydia told herself as he rapidly closed the distance between them, but the vague reassurances did nothing to stop her tensing and shrinking further against the wall— almost like she expected to be _hit._

If Betelgeuse weren't so elated to be out and about in the realm of the living, he might have been somewhat insulted. _Didn't the past few minutes mean anything to her? _He would be _good_. To an extent.

"Babes," he purred gleefully, half caging her in with one palm plastered to the wall above her head, the other angling her petite chin up so that he could get a better look at that pretty face. He'd forgotten how much of a pipsqueak she was, not even meeting his shoulders in height. _Precious._ "_You…_ are a sight for sore eyes if I've ever seen one."

Very desperately, he wanted to kiss her; knot his striped tongue around her cute pink human one, suck the oxygen from her lungs, maybe bite that split on her lip open until he could taste her life-blood. Instead, knowing better than to push his astronomical luck, a firm, lingering kiss was planted on her searing forehead— his own perverse way of showing appreciation. However, the unusual heat radiating from the pale, clammy flesh there made him frown severely as he pulled back, then draw his hand up to more thoroughly assess the situation.

The large limb easily encompassed half her face and was cool to the touch, just like Barbara's used to feel when she would check Lydia's temperature. This one was rougher, boasting ragged claws at the tip of each filthy, calloused digit. Still, unable to help herself, she sighed in scant relief at the pleasant sensation and let her eyes drift shut. It was _nice. _

"Oh, honey," he murmured with something like sympathy, dragging his thumb along her inflamed cheek, "yer burnin' up. Told ya y'shoulda stayed in today. Whaddya think yer doin? Runnin' 'round with a fever, gettin' in t'fights?" _Tangling with supernatural entities that absolutely meant you harm? _

"I _would_ have stayed home."

In the wake of his gentle handling and blatant show of concern, Lydia felt safe enough to indulge the creeping exhaustion that had been weighing her down all day. His attention was still entirely too affectionate and intrusive, but nothing worth expending energy on. Weight crumpling against the wall, she allowed him to continue fussing, but made sure to deal a pointed barb just in case he was getting the wrong idea.

"But there was a creepy old dead guy hanging out in my mirror."

_Naughty, feisty kitten. _He couldn't interrogate her when she was like this; half-dead, doing crazy stuff like insulting him to his face, letting him touch her and get away with it. Though he certainly wasn't going to complain about that part.

"Ain't Red or Babs around t'make y'some chicken noodle soup or somethin'?" He questioned, ignoring her cute little jab and linking his arm around her shoulders to pull her away from the wall and toward her bed. That she didn't even bother resisting a move like this was additionally worrying. "That's what you breathers slurp down when yer hackin' up chunks, right?"

"Barb is gone," she explained, simple and dour, and flopped back on her unmade sheets with little instruction from him. "And Delia's a bitch. It doesn't matter. It's just a cold, it'll go away. I can eat tomorrow. It's not like I have to go to school. _Or anywhere._"

Granted the ghoul was long out of touch with humanity, but that didn't sound right. Eating was like… a _daily_ thing, right? Skinbags were supposed to take care of their sick younglings, weren't they?_ Somebody_ had to take care of her. Seeing as Barb was gone, Delia was a bitch, and Chuck wasn't present enough to even be worth mentioning, Betelgeuse was all too keen to appoint himself to the task. With a wave, her school uniform, as well as everything else she was wearing, melted away to be replaced by a surprisingly modest and lightweight cotton nightgown— black, in line with her tastes.

"_Hey," _she objected weakly at first, before sparing a glance down. _Not bad_, and definitely less restrictive. He still earned a sour look as she dragged her de-shoed feet onto the bed into a more comfortable position. That he hadn't replaced her underwear was not beyond her notice. "Why are you being all…?"

"Can't have ya dyin' on me," he explained brusquely and shot a finger at the ceiling fan to turn it on full blast. Such a blunt answer only inspired more questions in his wife, but she remained silent and watched on with dampened spirit as he pulled a loose sheet over her up to the hips, where she could reach it if she wanted to cover more.

Unable to keep from taking advantage _a little_, he allowed his knuckles to drag very lightly across her thigh as he did so. She was too damn _hot_, and not just in the obvious visual way. Bringing down that temperature was priority number one. That sickness had taken her at all was solid confirmation that their connection was indeed tampered with, which constituted a clear violation of the marriage contract. Lydia wasn't supposed to get _sick, _or age past a certain point, or any of that fatal human shit_. _

"T'tell ya th'truth, honey, I dunno how t'do this, so I'mma need ya t'quit actin' so tough n' tell me whatcha need. I get it, message received, yer a strong independent woman who don't need no man. Now c'mon, help me out here."

Pouting at the unfairness, the outrageousness that _Betelgeuse_ was actually here in her bedroom _babying_ her like this, she conceded bitterly. What other option did she have?

"A glass of ice water and a couple ibuprofen."

"That's a good girl," he praised when she accepted the requested items after he conjured them, making her glare narrow further. Nevertheless, the chilly water ran deliciously down her parched throat and again, she forgave his trespass.

"Why not just take off and go do… whatever?" This question came once both husband and wife had settled into a comfortable silence; her suffering sated momentarily beneath the whirling fan, and he throned up in the cozy reading chair parallel to her bed. "What do you want from me?"

"Too much fer you t'handle talkin' 'bout right now, little girl." That certainly worked to silence her, until a _click_ echoed from his side of the room and an acrid scent drifted through the air, signaling that a cigarette had been lit.

"Please open a window." Without a word, the polite request was obeyed. The silence wasn't comfortable anymore. At least, not for Lydia. Betelgeuse seemed happy enough lounging across from her; staring, smoking, not saying anything. "You should probably lock the door. In case Delia or my father come barging in… but… I guess they usually knock."

"S'already done."

Lydia kicked herself for not noticing. _Conniving poltergeist._

"You were pretty loud earlier…" She commented, squirming several minutes later, the idea of it only just now hitting her. "What if they heard you?"

"Soundproofed th'room."

Well, then. He just had everything figured out, didn't he? "I don't have to worry about… I mean… you're not going to do anything _bad_ are you…?"

A heavy sigh fell ragged from his smoke-harshened throat. "Babe. Lyds. Honey. _Already told'y I ain't goin' anywhere. _Ain't gonna _do_ nothin'. M'stayin' _riiiighht_ here. Now chill th'fuck out n' go t'sleep."

Knowing she shouldn't, Lydia derived a bizarre comfort from this. Right when he thought she was out for the count, she troubled him for one more thing, just because she could.

"_Would you hand me the doll… please?" _

"… sure."


End file.
